A door assembly can include a frame and one or more doors. Generally, the door assembly may be manufactured such that the frame is constructed as a separate component from the one or more doors. This allows for convenient installation on site upon delivery, as the frame can be installed easily at the desired location with the one or more doors being subsequently fittingly supported to the frame to complete the door assembly on site.
Where the frame and one or more doors are manufactured as separate components, the frame and one or more doors are also generally packaged for shipment as distinct parts. Namely, an appropriate number of frames are packaged together in a first, usually large, box while an appropriate number of doors are packaged together in a second box. The first and second boxes are loaded onto a trailer for shipment, and this process is repeated until available trailer space has been filled. Where the door assemblies are of a type that includes more than one door per frame (e.g., a left door and a right door), the second box will generally be made to contain an appropriate number of left doors and an additional third box will be used to contain an appropriate number of right doors.
The described packaging and shipment of door assemblies as distinct components in separate boxes can result in an inefficient use of available trailer space. This is particularly the case for door assemblies that include more than one door per frame. In such door assemblies, in addition to the increased trailer space occupied by the additional door boxes, the frames are of an increased size (e.g., cross-sectional area) in order to receive multiple doors. Consequently, a larger box must be used for packing such frames. This results in an increased footprint of the frame box within the trailer, and thus less available trailer space for additional boxes needed for the added doors. Yet, the content of the larger frame box is mostly air.